European shares cautiously up amid trade uncertainty, weak resultsLon

London, European shares traded cautiously on Thursday, ending the session just slightly up as uncertainty over U.S.-China trade talks continued and weak earnings reports hit auto and retailer stocks.

The pan-European STOXX 600 spent most of the day in negative territory but crossed the finish line up 0.2 percent as Wall Street erased early losses as the U.S. president hailed "tremendous success with China" but failed to fully reassure markets. The last minute gains kept alive a rally that had taken European stocks back to mid-December highs.

Autos were the second worst-performing sector, down 0.3 percent behind tech, which fell 0.5 percent.

German lighting company Osram fell 6 percent after its CEO warned the final quarter of 2018 was weaker than expected because auto demand had slowed.